Not wanting to waste too much time on this example of confirmation bias - yes we all have it, but obviously some more than others - I went straight to the "Nutritional Vegetarians" section, since I'm less likely to be conned there. A quick glance through the book found the below passage which said it all for me. I didn't need to read any further. Anyone who has seen my various blood tests, Cronometer outputs and omega-3 index test result (in the Plant Based Diet Thread) should know that below is just scaremongering. For those who eat a well structured WFPB diet and supplement for all potential long term problems (B12, sunshine/vit-D, iodine, ALA and EPA&DHA, maybe zinc) as I do, should be rewarded with improved long term health (for their age). If you do fail like the author, it's better to work on restructuring your diet to fix whatever problems arise. Rather than dissuading others from benefiting their health.

The Vegetarian Myth, pages 239 & 240 wrote:This is what will happen if you eat vegetarian, especially if yougo vegan, for any length of time. Maybe not all of these things, butsome of them. You will wear out your insulin receptors. The humanbody was never meant to absorb that amount of sugar. You can callit “complex carbohydrates” if you want, but it’s sugar. The hypoglycemiawill make you shake, sweat, and crave, god, those cravings.You’ll feel like you’re going to die if you don’t put food in your mouthevery three hours, every two hours, then thirty minutes after you eat.Once those receptors are gone, they don’t come back. Hypoglycemiais its own emotional hell: the sudden weepiness, the temper fits, theinstability. It’s inexplicable when you’re living it, and you also thinkit’s normal, just life. It’ll get worse every year. And yes, obviously youcould do this to yourself as an omnivore. The standard US Americandiet contains vast quantities of sugar, with or without the meat. Butit’s hard to avoid as a vegetarian unless you live on eggs and cottagecheese, and impossible to avoid as a vegan.You will destroy your bones and joints. You won’t get enoughminerals; unless you pretreat every seed (grains, nuts, beans), thephytates will bind with what few minerals you are ingesting; and youwon’t have enough dietary fat to absorb whatever is left. And youwon’t have enough vitamin D to build bone matrix, or enough zinc tobuild collagen.The polyunsaturated fats, unstable and rancid, will wreck yourblood vessels, your heart. Without protective saturated fats, adequate protein, and enough vitamin D, you will be at tremendous risk forcancer, especially the kinds that kill. Remember that hunter-gatherersdon’t get cancer. Remember who does. The high omega-6s (and the nonexistent omega-3s) will createinflammation everywhere. Your joints, your blood vessels, your gut,your liver, your nerves, your brain are all potential victims. Maybeyou’ll get fibromyalgia. Maybe you’ll get Alzheimer’s. Maybe you’llhave unnamed low-level pain where everything aches and you hate tobe touched or jostled. It’s because everything’s inflamed.

Although I agree that the long term problems encountered on a vegan diet are more likely to be deficiency based. The long term problems associated with the excesses of a standard western diet are likely to be more debilitating, dangerous and often irreversible. The problem with our society is we accept these chronic illnesses caused by a standard diet as just a normal part of ageing, blaming bad genetics instead. Also don't assume that a standard diet is devoid of deficiencies. Entering one's standard diet into Cronometer should quickly end that delusion.My father's standard diet compared to mine. Cronometer results.

Despite what the author says below. The link between the ingestion of saturated fat, raised blood cholesterol and the resultant CHD are well established in science. One study on the link between cholesterol and CHD can be seen just two posts above. Anyone who doesn't believe that ingested saturated fat increases cholesterol can simply test it for themselves. Get a blood test for cholesterol. Eat a lot more saturated fat for some months. Then get another blood test. As the regular readers likely know, my total cholesterol dropped from 6.5 to 3.4 mmol/L without meds.https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/saturated-fat/

The Vegetarian Myth, pages 169 & 170 wrote:In order for the Lipid Hypothesis to become the Lipid Law, thefollowing dots would have to be connected. Saturated fat would haveto raise cholesterol levels, and cholesterol would have to cause CHD.

Saturated fat > raised cholesterol > CHD

There is a huge array of epidemiological studies that show nocorrelation between saturated fat consumption, cholesterol levels,and heart disease.

Unless you are looking for information to feed your confirmation bias on why veganism is bad, this book is a waste of your time.

skimmed the intro. I agree with the book about keeping top soils healthy.But this is not a nutrition book. It is a sustainable earth book.Sustainability will be more likely by if the human population drops below 3 billion. Sustainability has more to do with not competing over scarce resources.

The author is a failed vegan.I rarely meet a nutritionally literate and disciplined vegan.

This book's nutrition slant can be dismissed by the Loma Linda SDA vegan experience, end of story. This group are the only Blue Zone that live and work immersed in the urbanized west.And they achieve a superior longevity advantage despite their varied genetic makeup.

This is what I ate for lunch, the left one is vegetarian and the right one is Chicken Teriyaki

The problem with buying pre-made food is that you don't really know what you are eating. With the exception of the major fast food chains which state the energy there is no information apart from what you can see.

1. How many calories? CK is probably the best at answering this but 95% of the population wouldn't have a clue and less than 1% would be able to judge with any degree of accuracy.

2. What's in it? There's what you can see and what you can't see.

3. Portion control? That's limited to the physical size as the calorie density is difficult to judge.

4. Nutritional data? From what I can see in this food hall, there is little knowledge and probably little care in their client base and their food/drink choices are aligned to national statistics

5. Cost? In this example its quite reasonable at $3 each making my lunch $6. However I can see an advert for KFC $5 lunch consisting of two pieces of chicken with coating, chips, mash potato and gravy and a soft drink [I think its 3,750Kj or about 45% of standard daily needs], so not only is it $1 cheaper, it also includes a drink. As we know food that is pitched as healthier tends to be more expensive such as $12 - $15 for lunch

mikesbytes wrote:2. What's in it? There's what you can see and what you can't see.

It matters (everything matters to some degree). But since take-away is generally a nutrition fail, does it really matter that much?

mikesbytes wrote:3. Portion control? That's limited to the physical size as the calorie density is difficult to judge.

Does portion control matter? If you've under for energy needs this time (assuming one eats ad-lib) then eventually your body will put in an order to make up for the calories that are missing. However, if the food/drink is poor and therefore metered poorly (not so much in this case) then one's body will miscalculate and one will overeat. Which gets back to the food quality often being more important than the quantity in the long run. Especially as you get older and less active.

mikesbytes wrote:4. Nutritional data? From what I can see in this food hall, there is little knowledge and probably little care in their client base and their food/drink choices are aligned to national statistics

Does it matter? It's take-away. Which gets back to question 2.^

mikesbytes wrote:5. Cost? In this example its quite reasonable at $3 each making my lunch $6. However I can see an advert for KFC $5 lunch consisting of two pieces of chicken with coating, chips, mash potato and gravy and a soft drink [I think its 3,750Kj or about 45% of standard daily needs], so not only is it $1 cheaper, it also includes a drink. As we know food that is pitched as healthier tends to be more expensive such as $12 - $15 for lunch

The value argument is hard to win for those who don't care about health. Taken to the extreme, a bottle of supermarket generic vegetable oil always wins this comparison. Which is only worth remembering if you're literally long term starving. However, my diet isn't too expensive at $16.40 a day including supplements, or $114.80 per week. If I made diet quality a priority, I could probably still eat this way on the dole. But if I was on the dole, I could probably still eat reasonably well for half that.

Yes, grains are cheap. Fresh veg is not that cheap IMO, especially per Cal. Probably averages about $4 per kg for what I buy. 2000 Cal of Broccoli would cost me about $45. But would also be 9 kg, which may be impossible to eat in a day. Fresh fruit is generally expensive too. If I had to cheap-out, I would up the grains and minimise the fresh fruit & veg. Health may not be affected much, but I'd probably put on some weight.

when I was a boy we had our own very productive vege patch, and a dozen fruit trees, on a 1/4 acre.though it is a sign of the times that most people are more time poor now with fewer children and less space for such things. nevertheless, I often see ethnic people out along creeks in Brisbane picking selected greens to take home and cook. Twelve years ago, I brought it up with a Qld Govt obesity summit that they grow more 'free' edibles in public spaces, but was ridiculed for it. They preferred to spend all the money on football stadiums that run at a perpetual loss.

Food as a percentage of total household income has gone down over the last 40 years. Cost of housing has gone up.

50 odd years ago a house 20km from the cbd could be had for 4-5x the average f/t wage. Now, Sydney's median house price is $1,123,991. Sydney's average f/t wage is $66,532, a multiple around 17x.

There's the problem, a problem created by elites in government and banks who think deregulated banking and restricting new housing supply has no down side.

Ha ha, that's a way to make Broccoli look bad. I'll use the line at my Pilates class "did you know you can get your daily calorie requirements from 9kg of Broccoli" BTW its on special my way at the moment $2Kg - that's a bargain.

And as we know there's a huge variation in retail vege prices, the farmer gets little, most of the cost is in distribution and retail. A good example is snow pea sprouts, big cost at the supermarket for a small serving but my local chinese grocer sells a large bag of them for $2.85 so the pricing at a fruit shop or the supermarket bear no relationship to the growing costs.

CKinnard wrote:There's the problem, a problem created by elites in government and banks who think deregulated banking and restricting new housing supply has no down side.

Not for them. A great way to enslave the population with having to work more and pay more taxes for the basics in life. Not to mention the higher stamp duties and land tax. while the banks get their very profitable, low risk return. Meanwhile two thirds of the electorate are happy that their properties and/or investments going up. So most are quietly happy about impoverishing their children's generation. But this is getting into a taboo topic and O/T...

mikesbytes wrote:Ha ha, that's a way to make Broccoli look bad. I'll use the line at my Pilates class "did you know you can get your daily calorie requirements from 9kg of Broccoli" BTW its on special my way at the moment $2Kg - that's a bargain.

Yeah $2/kgn is a bargain. One of the best veg for getting nutrients. So I only need to eat about a head (say 300g) per day to get a good chunk of what I need. Especially vit E & K.

Yes Nobody, off topic for those who have little comprehension or will to understand ultimate cause and effect of why there's an obesity epidemic.

But unless people have the subtlety of mind and erudition to put all the pieces together that are destroying the health of the nation, then much human suffering will be perpetuated....all because some put ego and virtue signaling before facts.

I had an early authentic dinner with Vietnamese friends tonight. Smart people. When they first landed in Australia, the Viet community advised them to save, borrow, and buy property, because inflation will erode the value of everything else....and property goes up faster than one can save money. they have over a dozen houses now, and two prime development blocks. Sad that Australia rewards house price appreciation more than companies that create jobs.

CKinnard wrote:Yes Nobody, off topic for those who have little comprehension or will to understand ultimate cause and effect of why there's an obesity epidemic...Sad that Australia rewards house price appreciation more than companies that create jobs.

Yes, sad, unproductive and stupid. AU has been called the lucky country, but I doubt many would call it the smart country. We have to have inflated immigration just to keep the economic growth going. Without it, growth is virtually flat at 0.5%.

A head's up for the idiot box tonight. There's a show on called Eat Well for Less? on at 7.30pm tonightfirst of a two part series. Might be pretty lightweight considering it is in peak time on a commercial station, but kudos to 9 for putting such a show on at all.

Just found a bit of a lead in article here. Seems a simple treatment of simple but old and wise home economics stuff.

They're focusing on sugary drinks and exercise. But no one appears brave enough to tackle the high fat foods and animal products. Therefore I'm not surprised that it's getting worse at a fast rate.

I have not been able to find the original data this article refers to. It's lost in the referred to audit pages.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... /dme.13609The above study reveals the childhood T2D rate is 8-11x higher (than whites) in children of Indian sub continent ancestry, and 4x higher in children with African ancestry. Bangladeshis have the highest rate and Pakistanis next.

So the incidence is probably a combo of genetics, sub-culture, education/illiteracy, and economics.Two thirds of Bangladeshis in the UK live below the poverty line. The great majority of migrants from Africa and Indian subcontinent do not speak English at home and English illiteracy is over 70%

People forget that migrants tend to be younger, so separate from their parents. In doing so, they often do not have a lot of worldly wisdom passed on, like how to prepare nutritionally balanced meals. I saw this personally when working with Tibetan refugees in India and Sikkim. They did not know how to eat healthily nor know basic medical assistance (first aid) as their elders did back home. When you look at the eating habits of many people under 30, you can understand how nutrition deteriorates quickly without the guiding influence of elders.

They're focusing on sugary drinks and exercise. But no one appears brave enough to tackle the high fat foods and animal products. Therefore I'm not surprised that it's getting worse at a fast rate.

Childhood diabetes is certainly on the increase, this is not new news. I agree that the diet as a whole needs to be addressed and having seen the poor health of many adults, how can they be an inspiration to children when they don't fix their own health issues.

In regards to the sugary drink tax, I see this as one small step in the correct direction with many more steps needed. I saw this really cool advert for a can of solo (that's a softdrink) with Dad peddling his guts out on a 3 seater tamdem while the 2 kids at the back weren't peddling [playing with their electronic devices], so it was a well earned thirst. Now that same advert would of been just as cool if it was a well earned snack, a banana

Thanks for posting that study. It appears whites have been eating diary and animal products more that other cultures in the past and maybe adapted a bit more to the abuse.

CKinnard wrote:When you look at the eating habits of many people under 30, you can understand how nutrition deteriorates quickly without the guiding influence of elders.

Yes, I see it in my own household.

mikesbytes wrote:Childhood diabetes is certainly on the increase, this is not new news. I agree that the diet as a whole needs to be addressed and having seen the poor health of many adults, how can they be an inspiration to children when they don't fix their own health issues.

I had a father of young children at work complain about the children's menus at restaurants. He said there was not enough healthy options. I said that they give options that taste good because that's what restaurants do. Restaurants produce those types of addictive tasting food. That's why the adults go there. I think he got the point. I think the whole lunch room got the point.

mikesbytes wrote:In regards to the sugary drink tax, I see this as one small step in the correct direction with many more steps needed. I saw this really cool advert for a can of solo (that's a softdrink) with Dad peddling his guts out on a 3 seater tamdem while the 2 kids at the back weren't peddling [playing with their electronic devices], so it was a well earned thirst. Now that same advert would of been just as cool if it was a well earned snack, a banana

Solo ad; "light on the fizz, so you can slam it down fast." Just what you don't want to do to a poorly metered (by body) no fibre, processed product. The ad you saw probably highlights generational differences. Gen X was more about exercise and outdoor activities. Far more than their children's generation for the same age IMO. But that exercise just makes you more likely to be a trimmer looking middle aged sick person, if one's diet is rubbish. I know a few like that around my age or a bit older at work. Look fine, but they're on meds for cholesterol or high BP etc. The guy who sits beside me in the lunch room (I'm surprised anyone sits beside me TBH) favourite regular food is toast with large amounts of butter or marg spread on them. He's on at least three medications for the heart attack he had some years ago. One of them is Lipitor, or vitamin-L as some doctors call it.

Another one at work a bit older than me was informed by his doctor that he was too fat and his blood tests were worse than average. So he needs to change. I mentioned that in a world where it was normal to have a heart attack, that's not a very positive assessment. I also mentioned that one needs to have a total cholesterol below 3.9 to be sure one is not getting worse.

Your lunchtime discussions sound familiar and you've provided some good responses while not taking it too far away from where they currently are, ie not making it look like they have to jump the grand cannon. Of course its really up to them, they have got to truly want to make the changes and as we know there are some who truly want to change and those who we are wasting our responses on

The comment about children's menu's not being healthy enough, why don't the vote with their feet, ie go to a different restaurant that has healthier children's selections? And I'd be betting that there will be healthier adult selections. Of course making your own food will be healthier again, but that's not the benchmark here.

Had a client in today who recently got back from several weeks in the UK where she hails from. She has young kids and we talked about the diff in food available there. This lady has a responsible job with a major corporation, so my jaw dropped when she said England doesn't have the same variety of food as we have here - like the nearest Maccas was 4km from where she was staying!!! She clarified that the family don't eat it all the time, but the french fries are good for placating the kids. I just couldn't engage her further on that topic. It was a stark reminder of how entrenched a lack of nutritional awareness is.

As for restaurants and takeaways, I was at the local food court for lunch. Lots of young mums with toddlers. I think I saw 2 eating healthy subway or sumo salad. The rest were hammering rubbish. Kids of today are going to have a horrible rate of diabetes 20-40 years down the track. Sometimes, I wish I could just go live on a few acres in a small rural town, and do my own thing.....and let the world carry on, downhill.

mikesbytes wrote:Your lunchtime discussions sound familiar and you've provided some good responses while not taking it too far away from where they currently are, ie not making it look like they have to jump the grand cannon. Of course its really up to them, they have got to truly want to make the changes and as we know there are some who truly want to change and those who we are wasting our responses on

Lately I'm going with a more "drip feed" approach. Just adding comments if the subject just happens to come up.

I'm also find two approaches are working better. One is using the "...illusion of knowledge" to highlight what most people think is nutritional knowledge, is really the product of multi-generational marketing from the big food players, through the general media. I try to reason along the lines of if the common knowledge through the general media is accurate, then everyone practising it should be lean and healthy. The other is highlighting that most peoples' thought processes when it comes to food are addictive in nature. Both these approaches aim to stimulate some reflective though of "have I really just got the illusion of knowledge with diet?" and "have I really got food addictions which are clouding my judgement?". You can tell people facts about diet all day. But unless you can get them to actively think about their choices, little change is likely to happen.

CKinnard wrote:...she said England doesn't have the same variety of food as we have here - like the nearest Maccas was 4km from where she was staying!!! She clarified that the family don't eat it all the time, but the french fries are good for placating the kids. I just couldn't engage her further on that topic. It was a stark reminder of how entrenched a lack of nutritional awareness is.

Got me to think about how close a Maccas is to me. Google maps says 900m and 11 minutes of walking. The local pub restaurant, kebab place and cafe are only a block or so from me. So what she is saying is England doesn't have a variety of junk food we have here. Not surprising. They appear to have more of an eat-in pub culture there. I doubt that would be much healthier though.

CKinnard wrote:...Sometimes, I wish I could just go live on a few acres in a small rural town, and do my own thing.....and let the world carry on, downhill.

Me too. But then I'd probably have food supply problems for whatever I can't grow and the internet connection would probably be poor.

Nobody wrote:Got me to think about how close a Maccas is to me. Google maps says 900m and 11 minutes of walking. The local pub restaurant, kebab place and cafe are only a block or so from me. So what she is saying is England doesn't have a variety of junk food we have here. Not surprising. They appear to have more of an eat-in pub culture there. I doubt that would be much healthier though.

Yes, what floored me about her comment was she actually considers Maccas a lifestyle enhancing and serious food option, FOR HER YOUNG CHILDREN!!!

I know this woman quite well now, and cannot be too hard on her. She is a good person in so many ways, and I sense she has stresses she is only barely managing. But I know with every fiber of my being that she would be so much happier if she could have that paradigm shift regarding diet and other lifestyle choices. Nevertheless, with the way I am set up now, I still have to do baby steps with most on this stuff. I had a lady this week who I've treated off and on for 4 mths finally open up about weight loss and nutrition. She is in early 40s, and feels her body starting to deteriorate. She and her friends all want to lose weight, and have smashed the sport and exercise for decades to achieve that... but they've never seen a dietitian or made a concerted effort to learn more about the nutrition.

I can see a book coming up that dumbs the subject down, pragmatically, and time efficiently. I think it is very much a matter of time poverty and mental fatigue that prevents many from absorbing what healthy nutrition is.....let alone the barrage of conflicting attention grabbing headlines by MSM.

What further amazes me is most of the clients i see who understand weight loss is all about diet, are doing it by Lite n Easy, or similar, at ~$10 a meal! They just perceive appropriate food portions as too complex a subject to personally manage. This justifies my criticism re the real world effectiveness of govt initiatives like the Australian dietary guidelines.

CK, you have customers because they lack the skills or ability or whatever. I'm guessing that the hardest part of job is getting them to change their mindset.

I too had to think about where McDonalds is and it took me a while, despite driving past it almost every day, its about 2k. About 1k is Hungry Jacks which got a lower score than McDonalds in my fast food adventure last year. The thing about these places is to ensure that they are not a regular visit, just occasionally. Closest food to me is Ikea, a Thai and a pub. The pub is my choice out of the 3 but its definitely in the occasional food category and unlike the fast food chains the calories are not stated.

One of the suggestions I make when people probe me for nutritional info is to avoid manufactured foods, as much as possible make the food yourself from base ingredients.

--------Someone told me this morning to watch a movie called something like The Circus, which came out about a year ago and talks about the importance of fat in the diet with a lot of detail, so I probably did alright have some avocado with my breakfast this morning

mikesbytes wrote:--------Someone told me this morning to watch a movie called something like The Circus, which came out about a year ago and talks about the importance of fat in the diet with a lot of detail, so I probably did alright have some avocado with my breakfast this morning

re making Maccas etc an occasional treat, the issue is kids then tend to attach excessive value to it. Later in life when they have more discretion over what they put in their mouths away from parents, they will often default to self nurturing with that hedonic pleasure. My parents hated fast food with extreme disdain, and I must say that influenced me deeply. My parents were smart and not wealthy when younger. They expressed their intelligence not via conspicuous consumption, but by strength of character, which included good nutrition and frugality via nutritious home cooked meals. I have had several good friends since the early 80s who brought their kids up as healthy informed vegetarians/vegans. No junk food. Unhealthy junk food just doesn't appear on the radar of their kids. Their taste buds just don't dig it. Anyway, I appreciate once Pandora's Box has been opened, it takes much more effort to close it.

Re dietary fat, yes the LCHF and saturated fatties brigade have muddied the waters recently. As I am want to do, I must read up on the average fat content of the Blue Zone diets. IMHO, low carbers are many generations away from adequately demonstrating their doctrine trumps the Blue Zone longevity advantage.

Nobody, the more diet clients I see, the more I am convinced insulin resistance is the plaid dressed elephant in the room re dysregulated appetite. I give the LCHF devotee Ivor Cummins kudos for reviving Joseph Kraft's 5 hour glucose challenge for insulin sensitivity.

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